With a three-point shot heard around the world, No. 13 seed Furman Paladins roared back into the NCAA Mens’ Basketball Tournament and took out the No. 4 seed Virginia Cavaliers with a 68-67 upset win in the first round of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament.
JP Pegues, a sophomore guard from Nashville, Tenn. sealed the win for the Paladins with a three-point shot with 2.2 seconds left in the game. Forward Jalen Slawson from Summerville, S.C. led the Paladins with a double-double: 19 points and 10 rebounds. Three more Paladins joined Slawson scoring more than 10 points each: guard Marcus Foster (14), guard Mike Bothwell (11), and JP Pegues (11).
Sports outlets, including ESPN and The New York Times, reported that this upset was the most probable among all first-round matchups. Click here to read about Furman math professors’ decade of predicting NCAA tournament upsets and how major news outlets incorporate the Furman modeling in their bracket predictions.
The March 16 victory advanced the Paladins to a second-round matchup with No. 5 seed San Diego State Aztecs at the Amway Center in Orlando. The Aztecs stopped the Paladins’ tournament run by handing them a 75-52 loss.
The Paladins earned a berth in the NCAA 2023 tournament by winning the Southern Conference Tournament with an 88-79 victory over University of Tennessee-Chattanooga. This marks the first time in 43 years the Paladins advanced to the NCAA Tournament.